Four AE faculty members were recognized for teaching excellence.
Four AE faculty members, John Christian, Brian Gunter, Koki Ho, and Mayuresh Patil, were commended by Georgia Tech students for their exceptional performance in the classroom during Fall 2023 through the Course Instructor Opinion Survey (CIOS).
The recipients of the CIOS award are acknowledged for their outstanding response rates and scores on a CIOS survey through the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Students complete the survey at the conclusion of each semester, offering valuable feedback to instructors regarding the learning experience in their courses.
Awardees are chosen based on the combined assessment of three CIOS items: the instructor's demonstration of respect and concern for students, the instructor's high level of enthusiasm for teaching the course, and the instructor's effectiveness in stimulating interest in the subject matter.
John Christian
Associate Professor John Christian was selected in his AE 8803 Special Topics Optical Navigation Course in the College of Engineering (CoE) small classes category. Christian leads the Space Exploration Analysis Laboratory and is considered an expert in visible/infrared space imagery for celestial optical navigation (OPNAV) and planetary terrain relative navigation.
Christian recently worked with Intuitive Machines to develop an algorithm that guided a new lunar lander to the moon.
Brian Gunter
Associate Professor Brian Gunter was recognized by his students in his AE 4806 Special Topics: Space Hardware Lab under the CoE small classes category. This course focuses on a spacecraft subsystem and payload experiments in a lab. Gunter, director of the Space Systems Design Lab, specializes in orbital mechanics.
He conducts research related to spacecraft missions and their practical applications. This includes exploring topics like space traffic management and space domain awareness, studying changes in polar ice sheets through satellite data monitoring, examining the applications of satellite constellations, and contributing to the development of small satellite systems.
Koki Ho
Koko Ho, Dutton Ducoffe Professor and director of the Space Systems Optimization Group, was recognized for his course, AE 6353 Orbital Mechanics in the CoE large classes category. The course includes two-body mechanics, orbit determination, orbit prediction, orbital maneuvers, lunar and interplanetary trajectories, orbital rendezvous, and space navigation.
Ho’s research centers around space systems and space logistics and deals with complex space system design and mission analysis issues through mathematical computation and modeling.
Last fall, he was selected to lead a $5 Million AFOSR Space University Research Initiative (SURI) grant with AE Professor Panagiotis Tsiotras.
Mayuresh Patil
Professor of the Practice Mayuresh Patil was selected for his outstanding classroom acumen by students in his AE 2220: Dynamics Course. This course introduces students to the kinematics and dynamics of rigid bodies in both plane and 3-D motion.
Patil is no stranger to the CIOS award and received it for the Summer 2023 course AE 3140 Structural Analysis held in Limerick, Ireland.
